Pavel Borodin about Union Council of Ministers: all issues are successfully settled

All the items on the agenda of yesterday’s Union State Council of Ministers were settled positively, said State Secretary of the Union State Pavel Borodin during a press conference at the agency “RIA Novosti”.

All the items on the agenda of yesterday’s Union State Council of Ministers were settled positively, said State Secretary of the Union State Pavel Borodin during a press conference at the agency “RIA Novosti”.

“At the meeting of the Union State Council of Ministers and during the bilateral meeting of Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Myasnikovich, which lasted more than five hours, all the issues touching upon common interests of the integration structure were settled. What was at issue was nanotechnology, Russian Space Agency as well as supercomputers ... Another important question concerned Union State property,” the agency quotes Pavel Borodin.

An important result of the meeting was also the agreement on terms of supply of Russian energy resources to Belarus. “We settled all questions relating to prices and supply balance in the energy sector, including oil and gas,” the State Secretary said.

The meeting also considered the progress of the Union State budget execution, approved the Plan of Joint Activities Undertaken to Ensure the Functioning of Joint Regional Troops Group in 2012, and discussed the progress of forming a common scientific and technological space of the Union State, promotion of small and medium-sized businesses, development of sport and tourism. Besides that, the participants of the meeting gave careful consideration to draft scientific and technical programmes in such areas as information resources security, development of new technologies and materials for industry and agriculture.

Moreover, Pavel Borodin noted that much attention was devoted to social issues – job creation, youth employment, pension system, provision of educational services, etc.

Pavel Borodin believes that the main indicator of Belarusian-Russian integration aspirations’ success is a noticeably increased trade turnover between Belarus and Russia: over the first half-year of 2011 it amounted to 18.6 billion dollars. “One third of the turnover of the former Soviet Union countries is the turnover between Russia and Belarus,” he stressed.

The State Secretary of the Union State gave a detailed account of the problems that the countries faced applying the new rules of the Customs Union and joining together with Kazakhstan the Common Economic Space.